Royal Air Force Handley Page Halifax
Bomber aircraft. Aviation art prints of the Halifax Bomber by leading
aviation artists Ivan Berryman, Gleed and Barry Price, available from
Cranston Fine Arts, the aviation art company.
HANDLEY PAGE HALIFAX. Royal
Air Force heavy Bomber with a crew of six to eight. Maximum speed of
280mph (with MK.VI top speed of 312mph) service ceiling of
22,800feet maximum range of 3,000 miles. The Halifax carried four
.303 browning machine guns in the tail turret, two .303 browning machines
in the nose turret in the MK III there were four .303 brownings in
the dorsal turret. The Handley Page Halifax, first joined the Royal
Air Force in March 1941 with 35 squadron. The Halifax saw service in
Europe and the Middle east with a variety of variants for use with Coastal
Command, in anti Submarine warfare, special duties, glider-tugs, and
troop transportation roles. A total of 6177 Halifax's were built and
stayed in service with the Royal Air Force until 1952
Halifax Tugs Towing Hamilcar Gliders by Ivan Berryman.
Halifax glider tugs of 644 Squadron, Tarrant Rushton, 1944.
Item Code : DHM1713
Halifax Tugs Towing Hamilcar Gliders by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Halifax B.II Series 1 (Special) JP254 of 148 Special Duties Squadron, RAF is depicted over the drop zone near to the Alt Aussee salt mine in the Austrian Alps as two of the four SOE agents exit the bomber via the crew access door. Their mission was to secure and protect 6,755 items of the world's greatest works of art that had been looted and stored by the Germans as they swept across Europe. With the allied forces closing in, the Germans had planned to blow up the entire store to prevent the artworks from falling into the hands of the liberators. Once on the ground, the four agents linked up with local resistance fighters and the mine and its valuable contents were eventually secured, the explosives made safe and the entire cache taken into the safe keeping of the 80th US Infantry Division as the German occupation of Europe crumbled.
Sunday 8th April 1945. Halifax B.II Series 1 (Special) JP254 of 148 Special Duties Squadron, RAF piloted by Pilot officer Bill Leckie is depicted approaching the drop zone near to the Alt Aussee salt mine in the Austrian Alps to drop four SOE agents and their equipment whose mission it was to secure and protect 6,755 items of the world's greatest works of art that had been looted and stored by the Germans as they swept across Europe. With the allied forces closing in, the Germans had planned to blow up the entire store to prevent the artworks from falling into the hands of the liberators. Once on the ground, the four agents linked up with local resistance fighters and the mine and its valuable contents were eventually secured, the explosives made safe and the entire cache taken into the safe keeping of the 80th US Infantry Division as the German occupation of Europe crumbled.
Item Code : B0488
Operation Ebensburg by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
A Halifax bomber of Bomber Command is being refueled and checked by ground crew on a snow covered RAF airfield. The Halifax was one of the three major bombers of the RAF. The Royal Air Force Halifax had a crew of six to eight, a maximum speed of 280mph (with MK.VI top speed of 312mph) service ceiling of 22,800 feet maximum range of 3,000 miles. The Halifax carried four .303 browning machine guns in the tail turret, two .303 browning machines in the nose turret, and in the MkIII there were four .303 brownings in the dorsal turret. The Handley Page Halifax first joined the Royal Air Force in March 1941 with 35 squadron. The Halifax saw service in Europe and the Middle East with a variety of variants for use with Coastal Command, in anti submarine warfare, special duties, glider-tugs, and troop transportation roles. A total of 6177 Halifaxes were built and the aircraft stayed in service with the Royal Air Force until 1952.
Sadly, but two examples of the Handly page Halifax exist today - the unrestored W1048 at the RAF Museum at Hendon, and the Yorkshire Air Museums pristine LV907 Friday the 13th, a rebuild from the remains of HR792.
Item Code : KW0018
A Friday in Winter by Keith Woodcock. - Editions Available
Out of the Night - The First To Go In by Robert Taylor.
Silently out of the night they came. With flaps deployed, three timber and plywood Horsa gliders swept swiftly down through the night skies, rapidly closing with their objective – Pegasus Bridge over the Caen Canal. On board, with tension etched deep into their blackened faces, men from the Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, part of the British 6th Airborne Division, braced themselves for landing. They, and sappers from the Royal Engineers, were about to become the first fighting force to land in France on D-Day. They were about to make history.
Item Code : DHM1818
Out of the Night - The First To Go In by Robert Taylor. - Editions Available
Halifax bombers of 102 squadron on the way across to occupied Europe on another bombing misison, June/ July 1944. At the controls of DY - E is Flt Sgt Arthur Albert Edwards DFC, the Halifax DY - H would a few weeks later be shot down on the 12th August 1944.
Item Code : NTR0029
Halifax Bombers by Barry Price. - Editions Available
Pilot Officer Cyril Joe Barton, VC: Born 5th June 1921 in Suffolk, Cyril Barton volunteered for aircrew duties and joined the RAFVR on 16th April 1941, qualifying as a Sergeant Pilot 10th November 1942. He and his crew went to No.1663 Heavy Conversion Unit (HCU) at Rufforth in Yorkshire. On 5th September 1943, they joined No.78 Squadron. Barton was commissioned as a pilot officer three weeks later. Undertaking their first operational sortie (a raid against Montlucon) they served with No.78 squadron until 15th January 1944. Having completed nine sorties, they were posted to No.578 Squadron. Their second sortie with the squadron, was against Stuttgart in Halifax LK797 which was a brand new aircraft. On 30th March 1944, having now completed six sorties in LK797 - which the crew had named Excalibur, they took off on a raid against Nuremburg. Whilst still 70 miles from the target, they were attacked head on by two enemy fighters. Excalibur had two fuel tanks punctured, both the radio and r.........
Image size 16.5 inches x 11.5 inches (42cm x 30cm)
none
£14.00
Top Cover by Robert Taylor.
Flying escort missions was no soft option for fighter pilots. Supporting bombers en-route to important strategic targets almost guaranteed interception by enemy fighters, and the great bomber air raids over enemy occupied Europe brought about some of the most ferociously fought dog-fights of the war. Though regarded as the best defencive fighter ever built, the Spitfire flew in most fighter roles in almost every theatre of WWII. It equipped many squadrons such as the RAF's number 610 Squadron, which flew this outstanding fighter in various marks, throughout the war. Having contested the Battle of Britain flying Mark Is, 610 became part of Douglas Bader's famous Tangmere Wing in 1941 with the Mark Vb. As part of top-scoring Johnnie Johnson's with Canadian Wing in 1943, the squadron was equipped with the Mark IX – the best of all Spitfire Marks according to the great wing leader – getting the better of the Luftwaffe's new Fw190 in the great air battles leading up to.........
Halifaxes of No.76 Squadron RAF en route to another night bombing raid over Germany. The lead aircraft here has code MP-L. Serial numbers for aircraft were unique, but codes like MP-L were transferred after an aircraft was lost. A total of 10 aircraft carrying the codes MP-L were lost from No.76 Squadron. These aircraft were :
L9530 : Shot down 12th-13th August 1941. R9452 : Crashed 12th-13th April 1942. W7660 : Shot down 19th-20th August 1942. W7678 : Lost 3rd-4th March 1943. DK172 : Shot down 23rd-24th May 1943. DK200 : Crashed 11th-12th June 1943. LK922 : Shot down 21st-22nd January 1944. LK789 : Shot down 24th-25th April 1944. MZ622 : Crashed 24th-25th May 1944. LL579 : Crashed 27th February 1945.
Item Code : IBF0003
No.76 Squadron Halifax by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
Remembered fondly by many RAF, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand bomber crews, the Halifax served many diverse roles in WWII, including service with Special Duties, dropping agents and supplies behind enemy lines. Halifax MkIIs of 35 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command, head out over the Lincolnshire coastline at dusk bound for Germany, August 1942. No.35 Squadron was one of the five squadrons selected to form the original Pathfinder Force.
Item Code : NT0002
Pathfinder Halifax by Nicolas Trudgian. - Editions Available
Sadly, but two examples of the Handly page Halifax exist today - the unrestored W1048 at the RAF Museum at Hendon, and the Yorkshire Air Museums pristine LV907 Friday the 13th, a rebuild from the remains of HR792. In this portrait of one of Bomber Commands oft-forgotten workhorses, the original Friday the 13th is set against a stunning evening cloudscape.
Item Code : B0012
Friday the 13th by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
The Handley Page Halifax, together with the Avro Lancaster, formed the backbone of the RAFs night offensive against Germany from 1942 to 1945 and finished the campaign with an impressive record of achievement.
Item Code : DHM2233
Welcome Sight by Stephen Brown. - Editions Available
D-Day Invasion : Tribute to the Glider Troops by Ivan Berryman.
A tribute to the glider crews and airborne troops who participated in the glider operations during D-Day. The British Horsa glider (known as the flying coffin) was used by British, Canadian and American airborne forces during the invasion. Approximately 100 glider pilots were killed or wounded during the D-Day operations.
Item Code : B0313
D-Day Invasion : Tribute to the Glider Troops by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
One of 6,176 Halifaxes built during World War II, NA337(2P-X) was shot down over Norway on 23rd April 1945. In 1995 it was recovered from the lake that had been its watery home for fifty years and has now been restored by the Halifax Aircraft Association in Ontario, Canada.
Item Code : DHM1712
Halifax Mk.III NA337 by Ivan Berryman. - Editions Available
The Battle of Britain had been won by the young fighter pilots of Fighter Command, but now it fell to another band of young men to wage total warfare against the Nazi war machine - the aircrew of RAF Bomber Command. And like the fighter pilots of the Battle of Britain, the young men who flew with Bomber Command came not just from Britain, but from all over the Commonwealth, and from the countries of occupied mainland Europe. Every man was a volunteer, prepared to endure the deadly flak and prowling night fighters, to say nothing of the savage and bitter cold, in order to wage their relentless attack on the military and industrial targets of the Third Reich. The aircraft that carried these young men to war were numerous, but bearing the brunt of the RAFs incessant campaign were two heavy bombers, the stalwarts of Bomber Command - the Lancaster and the Halifax. Between them they accounted for over three quarters of all the bombs dropped by the RAF, and Halifaxes alone accounted for a.........
